Wipe-out: Kiwi inventor comes up with a fatburg-busting foam
BILLIE Jo Hohepa-Ropiha used to get through a mountain of wet wipes when her two children were babies.
And while she appreciated the convenience, the waste created never sat well with her.
Now, the former Seven Sharp journalist turned businesswoman has invented a foam which turns toilet paper into an environmentally friendly, degradable wet wipe – and she hopes it will eradicate billions of wet wipes in the next five years.
Most traditional wet wipes are made with non-biodegradable plastics, their use spiked during the first Covid-19 lockdown in March.
Flushing them contributes giant pipe-blocking meshes of fat, grease and non-flushable items, known as fatbergs.
They have plagued sewers from all corners of the globe, including London and New York City.
Here in New Zealand, local councils and the Ministry for the Environment say Billie Jo Hohepa-Ropiha’s innovation is encouraging.
The product, called BDE´T, is a pump bottle of foam which can be applied to toilet paper and will turn it into a cleansing wipe. But, unlike a wet wipe toilet paper with BDE´T on it can be flushed down the toilet after use.
‘‘We’re not like another flavour of peanut butter... we are a brand new product that needs a lot of education,’’ Hohepa-Ropiha says.
‘‘It’s going to be a solution to a global problem.’’
She has had the idea for the creating innovative products, foam since the 1990s, while that is my goal, I love it.’’ raising her own children. She Since leaving her fulltime gig used them to trial various as a TV journalist, Hohepasolutions, increasingly using Ropiha, whose iwi are Nga¯puhi, natural ingredients,¯TeAshesays.Mahurehureand ti Awa,
The final formula includes completed a Master of Business water, acids, lauryl glucoside, Administration through Massey sodium coco-sulfate, and parfum. University.
She says those products are 98 Covid-19 showed the impact per cent natural and the foam is wet wipes can have on made with the help of a laboratory wastewater in March, when that makes skincare products. multiple councils reported an
‘‘I told them about my idea and uptick in people flushing wet they created a formula based on wipes. what I had been working on over A spokeswoman for a couple of decades.’’ Watercare, the Auckland council
Her product has been water company, says while they dermatologically tested in Italy by cannot endorse a product, they the International Society for welcome any innovation to Pharmaceutical Engineering. reduce the use of wet wipes.
It’s now available in 10 ‘‘They are a huge issue all Countdown stores in Auckland around the world as they clog and online, but Hohepa-Ropiha is pipes, creating wastewater dreaming bigger. overflows.’’
‘‘My biggest hope is that we Watercare spends more than can take it to all corners of the $1 million a year to clear earth as a positive solution to a wastewater blockages caused very big growing problem.’’ by products like wet wipes being
She says her drive is to show flushed. her children they can chase their At the Christchurch City dreams and that nothing is Council, service excellence impossible. ‘‘I want to make my manager Tim Drennan says parents proud, I also want to pay since July 2020, they have had them back ... and I just love 15 wastewater blockages relating to non-flushable items, including wet wipes.
‘‘As a general rule of thumb, the only things people should be flushing down the loo are the three Ps – pee, poo, and paper,’’ he says.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry for the Environment says they cannot comment on the merit of the product, ‘‘but we do recognise value of innovation and new technology in the waste, packaging and consumables sectors.’’
We’re not like another flavour of peanut butter... we are a brand new product that needs a lot of education.’ BILLIE JO HOHEPA-ROPIHA